good books, which, as the serpent of Moses', might devour the serpents of the enchanters.

The removing of all the defects formerly enumerate, except the last, and of the active part also of the last, (which is the designation of writers,) are opera basilica, [works for a king;] towards which the endeavours of a private man may be but as an image in a crossway, that may point at the way but cannot go it. But the inducing part of the latter (which is the survey of learning) may be set forward by private travel. Wherefore I will now attempt to make a general and faithful perambulation of learning, with an inquiry what parts thereof lie fresh and waste, and not improved and converted by the industry of man; to the end that such a plot made and recorded to memory may both minister light to any public designation, and also serve to excite voluntary endeavours; wherein nevertheless my purpose is at this time to note only omissions and deficiencies, and not to make any redargution of errors or incomplete prosecutions 2; for it is one thing to set forth what ground lieth unmanured, and another thing to correct ill husbandry in that which is manured.3

In the handling and undertaking of which work I am not ignorant what it is that I do now move and attempt, nor insensible of mine own weakness to sustain my purpose; but my hope is that if my extreme love to learning carry me too far, I may obtain the excuse of affection; for that it is not granted to Iman to love and to be wise. But I know well I can use no other liberty of judgment than I must leave to others; and I for my part shall be indifferently glad either to perform myself or accept from another that duty of humanity, Nam qui erranti comiter monstrat viam, &c. [to put the wanderer in the right way]. I do foresee likewise that of those things which I shall enter and register as deficiencies and omissions, many will conceive and censure that some of them are already done and extant; others to be but curiosities, and things of no great use; and others to be of too great difficulty and almost impossibility to be compassed and effected. But for the two first, I refer myself to the particulars. For the last, touching impossibility, I take it those things are to be held possible which may be done by some person, though not by every one; and which

Not Moses, but Aaron. Ex. i. 17.-R. L. E.
infelicitates. De Aug.

i, e. cultivated.

may be done by many, though not by any one; and which may be done in succession of ages, though not within the hourglass of one man's life; and which may be done by public designation, though not by private endeavour. But notwithstanding, if any man will take to himself rather that of Salomon, Dicit piger, Leo est in via, [the slothful man saith there is a lion in the path,] than that of Virgil, Possunt quia posse videntur, [they find it possible because they think it possible,] I shall be content that my labours be esteemed but as the better sort of wishes; for as it asketh some knowledge to demand a question not impertinent, so it requireth some sense to make a wish not absurd.

¶ 1 The parts of human learning have reference to the three parts of Man's Understanding, which is the seat of learning: History to his Memory, Poesy to his Imagination, and Philosophy to his Reason. Divine learning receiveth the same distribution; for the spirit of man is the same, though the revelation of oracle and sense be diverse: so as theology consisteth also of History of the Church; of Parables, which is divine poesy; and of holy Doctrine or precept. For as for that part which seemeth supernumerary, which is Prophecy, it is but divine history; which hath that prerogative over human, as the narration may be before the fact as well as after.

Historia

History is Natural, Civil, Ecclesiastical, and Literary;

whereof the three first I allow as extant, the fourth Literarum. I note as deficient. For no man hath propounded to himself the general state of learning to be described and represented from age to age, as many have done the works of nature and the state civil and ecclesiastical; without which

1 De Aug. ii. 1. The substance of the following paragraph will be found considerably expanded in the first chapter of the Descriptio Globi Intellectualis, and set forth much more clearly and orderly in the first chapter of the second book of the De Augmentis; which begins here; the previous observations being introductory. As it may be convenient to the reader to have the means of referring at once to the corresponding passages of the more finished work, I shall mark with a ¶ the places where the several chapters begin; adding (where the case admits of it) some notice, more or less complete, of the differences between the two. See Preface, p. 255.

* De Aug. ii. 4. In the translation the divisions are altered: History being divided into Natural and Civil,—History of Nature and History of Man; and Literary and Ecclesiastical History being considered as separate departments of the latter. See chap. 2. paragraph 1. This alteration induces an alteration in the order of treatment; the precedence being given to the History of Nature, which is the subject of the second chapter.

the history of the world seemeth to me to be as the statua of Polyphemus with his eye out; that part being wanting which doth most shew the spirit and life of the person. And yet I am not ignorant that in divers particular sciences, as of the jurisconsults, the mathematicians, the rhetoricians, the philosophers, there are set down some small memorials of the schools, authors, and books; and so likewise some barren relations touching the invention of arts or usages. But a just story of learning, containing the antiquities and originals of knowledges, and their sects; their inventions, their traditions; their diverse administrations and managings; their flourishings, their oppositions, decays, depressions, oblivions, removes; with the causes and occasions of them, and all other events concerning learning, throughout the ages of the world'; I may truly affirm to be wanting. The use and end of which work I do not so much design for curiosity, or satisfaction of those that are the lovers of learning; but chiefly for a more serious and grave purpose, which is this in few words, that it will make learned men wise in the use and administration of learning. For it is not St. Augustine's nor St. Ambrose works that will make so wise a divine, as ecclesiastical history throughly read and observed; and the same reason is of learning.

Naturæ

History of Nature is of three sorts; of nature in course, of nature erring or varying, and of nature altered or wrought; that is, history of Creatures, history of Marvels, and history of Arts. The first of these no doubt is extant, and that in good perfection; the two later are handled so weakly and unprofitably, as I am moved to note them as deficient. For I find Historia no sufficient or competent collection of the works of Errantis. of nature which have a digression and deflexion from the ordinary course of generations, productions, and motions; whether they be singularities of place and region, or the strange events of time and chance, or the effects of yet unknown proprieties, or the instances of exception to general kinds. It is true, I find a number of books of fabulous experiments and secrets, and frivolous impostures for pleasure and

1 The description of the required history is set forth much more particularly in the translation; and the whole paragraph rewritten and enlarged.

2 De Aug ii. 2.

3 This division is retained in the translation, but the exposition of it is extended into a long paragraph.

strangeness. But a substantial and severe collection of the Heteroclites or Irregulars of nature, well examined and described, I find not; specially not with due rejection of fables and popular errors: for as things now are, if an untruth in nature be once on foot, what by reason of the neglect of examination and countenance of antiquity, and what by reason of the use of the opinion in similitudes and ornaments of speech, it is never called down.

The use of this work, honoured with a precedent in Aristotle', is nothing less than to give contentment to the appetite of curious and vain wits, as the manner of Mirabilaries is to do; but for two reasons, both of great weight; the one to correct the partiality of axioms and opinions, which are commonly framed only upon common and familiar examples; the other because from the wonders of nature is the nearest intelligence and passage towards the wonders of art: for it is no more but by following and as it were hounding Nature in her wanderings, to be able to lead her afterwards to the same place again. Neither am I of opinion, in this History of Marvels, that superstitious narrations of sorceries, witchcrafts, dreams, divinations, and the like, where there is an assurance and clear evidence of the fact, be altogether excluded. For it is not yet known in what cases, and how far, effects attributed to superstition do participate of natural causes; and therefore howsoever the practice of such things is to be condemned, yet from the speculation and consideration of them light may be taken, not only for the discerning of the offences, but for the further disclosing of nature. Neither ought a man to make scruple of entering into these things for inquisition of truth, as your Majesty hath shewed in your own example; who with the two clear eyes of religion and natural philosophy have looked deeply and wisely into these shadows, and yet proved yourself to be of the nature of the sun, which passeth through pollutions and itself remains as pure as before. But this I hold fit, that these narrations which have mixture with superstition be sorted by themselves, and not to be mingled with the narrations which are merely and sincerely natural. But as for the narrations touching the

De Miris Auscultationibus; which is now however generally admitted to be not Aristotle's.-R. L. E. See De Aug. ii. 2. Mr. Blakesley is of opinion that the nucleus of it was probably Aristotle's, but that it has been added to by subsequent writers.

Historia

prodigies and miracles of religions, they are either not true or not natural; and therefore impertinent for the story of nature. For History of Nature Wrought or Mechanical, I find some collections made of agriculture, and likewise of Mechanica. manual arts; but commonly with a rejection of experiments familiar and vulgar. For it is esteemed a kind of dishonour unto learning to descend to inquiry or meditation upon matters mechanical, except they be such as may be thought secrets, rarities, and special subtilties; which humour of vain and supercilious arrogancy is justly derided in Plato; where he brings in Hippias, a vaunting sophist, disputing with Socrates, a true and unfeigned inquisitor of truth; where the subject being touching beauty, Socrates, after his wandering manner of inductions, put first an example of a fair virgin, and then of a fair horse, and then of a fair pot well glazed, whereat Hippias was offended, and said, More than for courtesy's sake, he did think much to dispute with any that did allege such base and sordid instances: whereunto Socrates answereth, You have reason, and it becomes you well, being a man so trim in your vestiments, &c. and so goeth on in an irony. But the truth is, they be not the highest instances that give the securest information; as may be well expressed in the tale so common of the philosopher, that while he gazed upwards to the stars fell into the water; for if he had looked down he might have seen the stars in the water, but looking aloft he could not see the water in the stars. So it cometh often to pass that mean and small things discover great better than great can discover the small; and therefore Aristotle noteth well, that the nature of every thing is best seen in his smallest portions, and for that cause he inquireth the nature of a commonwealth, first in a family, and the simple conjugations of man and wife, parent and child, master and servant, which are in every cottage: even so likewise the nature of this great city of the world and the policy thereof must be first sought in mean concordances and small portions. So we see how that secret of nature, of the turning of iron touched with the loadstone towards the north, was found out in needles of iron, not in bars of iron.

But if my judgment be of any weight, the use of History Mechanical is of all others the most radical and fundamental towards natural philosophy; such natural philosophy as shall not vanish in the fume of subtile, sublime, or delectable specu